Fabulous Japan – Day 6 – Sayonara!

Dear Readers,

Day Six – Sayonara!

Total Distance Walked: 12km, Feet Pain-O-Meter: 6

Theme of Today: Singing Enchanted songs is very dangerous.

Day 6 started off in a panic, I put on my watch and the friendship ring Andrea bought for me. And my ring wouldn’t fit! I couldn’t believe it, finally after 6 days, the excess salt and MSG used in Japan got to me. I had extreme water retention! All of a sudden I broke in a panic because I couldn’t take off my ring and my finger was turning purple.

*gulp*

I managed to get it off after using soap, but it was really eye-opening and testament to the crazy amounts of MSG in Japanese food.

Sens0-ji Market – Revisited

 

A girl trapped in a caged bubble. Andrea wouldn't let me buy it.

We went back to the tourist strip to buy souvenirs. I angrily glared at the redbean pancake shop, SUCH LOUSY DESSERTS!! The happiest thing there was spotting Ninja and other japanese costumed Monchichis!!!! They are awesome! I bought one for each of us siblings. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 Ueno – Ameyoko-cho Arcade (famous black market district after WW2)

Our sweet Hideyoshi from the previous evening (aka oishi yakitori anime guy) actually emailed us, saying that we should check out Ueno. SO NICE OF HIM!! The email was date stamped 12+!!!

The Arcade was alright, a street market! A clean JJ market! (Bangkok reference)

Andrea  and I were hungry, so wanted to walk in to any restaurant, we walked into this one restaurant, it was quite empty. Imagine a vast room, with a circular counter in the center. The chefs waved and welcomed us, and directed us to the machine to order lunch.

NO PICTURES. Japanese words only!

Andrea loves markets.

In dismay we left that restaurant and found ourselves having lunch at a diner!

My first time in a diner!!! It was smokey and they forgot my meal, so they gave me a free glass of coke. (I didn’t drink it though, I’m a pepsi girl and still on my no-softdrink resolution)

Enroute to the Airport

We had such a good chat and chill time on the train to Narita Airport. Laughing talking about life, and at some point of time I kept on raving about Enchanted. I really like that movie!!!  I was busy singing, “True Love’s kiss,” when they announced that we would be alighting at Narita Airport soon. Andrea was really anxious and went up front to get her luggage.  I la la la happily got off the train, but was rummaging for my ticket. When I got off the train, I looked at Andrea, and

Stacy: I am so sorry Andrea, you have to bear with me, I lost the ticket in my – – –

Andrea: STACY!!! WHERE IS YOUR LUGGAGE???

Stacy: *Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhht??* noooooooooooo!!!

I turned around and banged the express train with my hands as it started to move again, kept on banging it to stop, but it didn’t

And just like that my small silver case was gone to another terminal.

I was literally shaking, and Andrea really saw the panic on my face and gave me a hug and told me everything would be okay. We went to the conductor, took out a piece of paper, Andrea started to draw a brief case, and I was anxiously doing charade movements of a travelling case.

Andrea had to board her plane, (we took separate flights) so she had to leave me and gave me one last big hug and hoped to see me at the agreed place in Bangkok Airport.

ARgh!!! I was so edgy and my hands were shaking! I had to stand there for 15 minutes, regain composure and hop on the next train heading to terminal 1. The conductor told me that once I get off the platform I would see my suitcase.

That wasn’t the case. I was directed to the lost and found, which was closed. Went back down to the platform to ask the Terminal 2 conductor’s help. At the end of the day, I got my luggage and was able to breathe again.

As I was boarding the plane, I glanced at the Plasma TV airing CNN – BOMB BLASTS IN BANGKOK. 48 INJURED (or something to that extent) Lovely, isn’t it great to live in Bangkok?

****
This is my last entry of my Fabulous Japan series. I have to say that the trip for me was more of experiencing Japan with Andrea than experiencing Japan itself. The entire week I was not stressed at all, (except for the suitcase train incident) it was filled with fun and laughter, and so many random stories.

Japan was fabulous, but what made it truly fabulous was being there with Andrea. We had such a great reunion trip and after travelling to Japan together, I feel like we can conquer the world! (except for India, I need Neha’s help on that one.)

I love you Andrea!!

Andrea, I LOVE YOU TO PIECES!!! Thank you for such fabulous memories!

Sayonara,

Stacy

For photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/skmkh2002/FabulousJapan2008

 

 

Fabulous Japan – Day 5 – Ninja-ing Tokyo

Dear Readers,

Day Five – Ninja-ing Tokyo

Total Distance Walked: 12 km, Feet Pain-O-Meter: 7

Theme of this evening: 1…2…3…NINJA!

The 2nd part of Day 5 begins at Tokyo station. Andrea and I quite expertly manage to find our subway station, we switched lines, I was carrying my small travelling case, Andrea was carrying her HUGE travelling case. In Japan, it is rare to find escalators, so I found it sadistically amusing seeing Andrea lug this huge mama but extremely durable case around.

The map to our hotel was insanely ridiculous. There were some main street names, and a big star in the middle.  After 20 minutes of walking around the square area, we went down this narrow street, and asked a waiter (who was standing outside the restaurant giving out flyers) where our hotel was.

He is probably one of the only Japanese people we’ve met this entire trip who knew where he was going. In his Japanese wooden clogs he tattle tattled 20metres down the street, and pointed to our hotel, that was hidden. SO NICE OF HIM!!

Ninja Restaurant

What can I say, I think that Andrea and I have a fascination (at least I do) about stealthness and ninja techniques. I love being stealth! correction. I love trying to be stealth! I haven’t mastered it at all yet. So naturally, when we read:

“Ninja” is a theme restaurant located in Akasaka, Tokyo. The restaurant is designed as a ninja house, and there are some tricks in the building. Food are served by “ninja” who also performs magics for guests. The food are based on Japanese cuisine but are creative. The presentation of the food is beautiful and interesting. There are about 100 dishes to choose from. It’s recommended to reserve a room.

We were interested.

Our ninja training? – Was being escorted to our table, we walk  through a dark passage, and we listened to the water fall, walk walk walk, watch our step, walk walk walk, look at the pond below…see a school of fish right below us underneath the transparents glass…1…2…3…say NINJA!!

NINJA!

A moat comes down and we enter the restaurant.

I have to admit, that was quite nifty and got 2 thumbs up from me.

Our waitress was super nice, we ordered drinks (that were SO SMALL and basically virgin drinks), we ordered a ninja caesar salad, crab something, and sea bass on a golden cloud, lamb…all were presented to us using Ninja tricks.

The food was really god-awful. The crab had a fishy smell…and the sea bass was overcooked..and the golden cloud turned out to be whisked egg whites which just made both of us gasy.

We sat right behind Steven Spielberg’s signature, so that was somewhat fascinating. And Andrea kept on saying that this must be a tourist trap, but around us we saw alot of Japanese locals.  I think it’d be a really nice place to go on a date, amusing and something to laugh about later on. I haven’t been to dinner theatre before,  but I think i’d like it.

We were mesmerised by a magician, he was AWESOME, he put a coin in my watch, not in my watch, but between my watch and wrist. I was so shocked. I loved it! I love magic!

When we left the restaurant, we were escorted out, and I turned behind and was quite impressed how the waiter/manager was watching us walk away, and right when Andrea and I turned around to look back, he surprised us by stylishly opening a scroll *SHING!!* ” Please come back again!”

hahah PRICELESS!!

Electric Town – Akihabara Electric Town district (filled with electronics stores)– most fascinating at night with all of the bright lights

It took 30 minutes to get our check at Ninja, so that by the time we reached Akihabara, it was around close to 9?

We walked into a AM/PM store (equivalent to 7/11) and right away the clerk took out a map and pointed us the direction.

BRAVO!!!

We followed his directions, looked right, looked left, looking for bright lights, shameless electricity wastage…but everything was dark! We walked and walked, just couldn’t find any lights! We then asked a pedestrian where Akihabara was, he scratched his head and apologised that he didn’t know.

BRAVO!!!! An honest answer!!!

Turns out, we arrived too late! all the stores were closed, no lights. Fabulous! Too bad we didn’t get to see what everyone raves about. Oh well. We then set off to find…

Oishi Yakitori  Doko Desku?

I think it was on Anthony Bourdain (love him) where I saw him eat really fresh chicken under train tracks. Actually I am not a yakitori fan at all, – its simply chicken on sticks. Big whoop.

But, its something to do late at night, we didn’t have our itinery with us, but ANDREA remembered the subway stop! Really amazing!! She is a superstar.

Come to think of it, it is quite scary to walk down an alley below the train tracks asking complete strangers “Oishi yakitori doko desku?” I told Andrea that I would ask (which was a big change), I asked a young looking small guy…

Stacy: Sumimasen, Yakitori Oishi (hand gestures) doko desku?

Young looking guy: Oh, you want to eat yakitori?

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He spoke English! Talk about winning the jackpot.

His name is…Hideyoshi and he looks like Japanese anime. He was such a sweetheart, told us that most probably all the restaurants were closed, and walked us to the popular ones. We invited him to join us for supper and he was super happy about that. The diners were open but were on last order so they didn’t want to entertain us. Boo.

Anyways, he then walked us to the subway station, and we exchanged business cards, and when we said goodbye, Andrea gave him a hug! And his face looked as if he had been stunned. lol. I wish i captured it.  I also gave him a hug, and was surprised how he returned the hug. aww…

Roppongi – Gaijin Nightlife

We reached Roppongi. It was FREEZING. We went up to a place called Roppongi hills, which really reminded me of Singapore’s Marine parade area – Esplanade + Merlion place. At that moment, I pictured myself living in Japan, and I thought it possible.

Andrea and I decided to play a game, make eyecontact and smile at locals passing by us, and count how many return the smile. We weren’t obnoxious about it, very casual like, eyecontact …tiny smile and nodd…eyecontact …tiny smile and nodd…

Person 1, Person 2, Person 3….Person 10 – NO RESPONSE! really amazing. It says alot.

We exited the subway station, and tada! Roppongi! A strip where you can find TGIF fridays (is that the chain name?) and all other American restaurants and what nots. We were walking down the street, contemplating whether or not to try out some club, or maybe go to HardRock Cafe…

Backtracking a bit..right near the Ninja restaurant, we met 2 black couples touring in Tokyo, we smiled and said “Have a good evening” to them,and they replied “have a good evening too! *smiles*” Tourist are always friendly to eachother!  Yay!

So, when we were standing near HardRock cafe, we saw a group of black tourist (men), so Andrea and I smiled and nodded.

Then one of them, walks up to Andrea and says, “Hey Baby, (like…Baaybeh..) whatcha wanna do tonight? *sly greasy teeth twinkling grin*leaning wink*”

!!!!EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Andrea and I just turned right around and power walked out of that situation!!

Hilarious.

We ran out of that situation, and back to the hotel.  That pretty much sums up Day 5.

Alright…repeat after me, and I will do a vanishing trick…

1….

2….

3….

Ninja!!!

Fabulous Japan – Day 2 – Halloween in Shibiya

Dear Readers,

Wow I have to go through these things faster, it has been more than a month and I’m only on Day 2!!!

Okay so Andrea and I had halloween in Shibiya. It was her first non-celebratory Halloween, and it was my first halloween ‘going-out’ in 2 years. Funny thing is, I’ve only celebrated halloween 4 times, and 3 of them have been with Andrea! I was Mulan, the next year I was a hobo, then in Singapore I was a doll, and this year I was a tourist who forgot her costume. haha. yay.

Damn, Shibiya (Shh BOO YAH!) is such a joke to get around. For people from HK, imagine Lan Kwai Fong x 5 and lanes going up and down, sideways and hills. It is completely mental, and everyone is lost! When Hiro was giving us a tour of Tokyo the previous night, he had no structured way of showing us the streets. We’d walk down a street, turn left, then turn another left, and then make a right, and so when he showed us this ultra happening club called WOMB I tried to make a mental bookmark of its location. But ultimately failed.

We did well to get to the intersection at Shibiya, where the famous Starbucks is located. (overrated to the max.) Went up some streets, and asked people for directions,

Andrea: Sumi Masen, Womb Doko desku?

Stacy: WOOOMB??? *hand moving in circle motion near my um…womb..*

haha, anyways, it is quite possible that many Japanese people hanging out in Shibiya don’t know that the club WOMB is named after…quite frankly, a womb.

So we walked up and down got lost for 45 minutes! Incredible! Totally killed our party mood. At one point, Andrea said, “Stacy, I think it is up this alley.” I look towards the right, and see a uphill alley lined with love hotels. WHAT?? Anyways, what the heck, we walk up, and I see this quite um..interesting looking woman, who speaks English! (hostess) and I do the song and dance, Sumimasen WOMB *hand motion* doko desku?

And she is replying to me, but not making much sense so I ask her again. Then Andrea tugs my sleeve, “Stacy let’s go..”

Turns out, Andrea says that while I was asking her “WOMB???” she replied…

High-Hostess lady: “What? why do you want to go to womb..when you can come upstairs and have some cocaine…”

WHAT!! I didn’t hear that at all! But Andrea swears by it. hahah, aie my encounter with a druggie. First and hopefully last.

We decided to ask a bunch of friendly looking girls, in colourful costumes for directions. And they said they were lost too but we could join them if they want. I’m not sure if they were being courteous, or whether they really meant it, but they were GOD SENT so maybe I was suppose to say, “Oh thanks so much, but we can manage” but I right away said, “Yes please!!!”

We walked another 15 minutes with them and they said that they knew someone who knew how to get to womb, so we walked BACK to the subway station to meet their bunch of friends. Got lost again. But it was fun all the same, talking to new them, they were all teachers.

Our new found friends in Shibiya.

 

One of their friends (Raj) was dressed up in a blue ultra man costume ( i later found out he was suppose to be the Blue Power Ranger) and along the streets we passed by another Ultraman kinda guy, and that Ultraman guy pointed at him, and they started to joke around and fight! hahah it was so funny! I wish i filmed it.

 

We went to a club called Pure and it was quite the skanky joint. I walked in and thought…omg…I’m clubbing in ATTICA TWO!!! (for Singaporeans who know Attica, you can repeat with me…>EW!!!) It was hot and sweaty and there were so many angmo/gaijin/foreigners there, and there was a strip pole on the stage where some amazingly athletic japanese girl showed off her moves and men are standing right in front of her gawking.

Look at the crowd..

Andrea and I at first got a drink (took ages) then we went to hide in a well ventilated sit down area. And we got to sit on stools, then this american black guy called Mike came up to us and said,

Mike: Hey, can I ask for your help, I have a friend who has a problem…

Stacy: No way, Neil Strauss’ The GAME?? you can’t be serious, you don’t need to –

Mike: So my friend has a girlfriend, and he just found out she kissed another guy what do you think..

Andrea: I think..lalalalala gives her opinion

I nudged Andrea and I’m like, ANDREA HES SO USING THE LINES FROM THE GAME!!!

Mike: I think so too, but it depends you know, there are many different levels of kissing…

Stacy: *faints*

I mean yes it was an entertaining book, but I can’t believe I actually met someone who followed what Neil Strauss wrote to the T!! Exactly! like opening line, then move on to the different degrees of kissing… I wonder if a lot of americans use these new pick up lines/dialogue.

And when Mike left us, Andrea and I were sitting on the stools, and this HUGE CREEPY looking guy – white guy, around…5’10…fat…messy dirty hair…bright orange plain T-shirt…he sat BEHIND us (because it was a round table kinda thing) and kept on staring at us in hopes to make conversation, and when we ignored him, he started to KICK MY CHAIR. omg, so ghetto! what was he thinking? SCARY!

Andrea and I found back our group of new found friends and danced a bit. I have to admit, the music was really good! But the men were quite aggressive, maybe I’m too used to the very pathetic Bangkok crowd – where at the end of the night they ask their friend to pass you a paper with their number *yawn*

Look at his SWEAT! Eee!!

Anyhoo, the cover charge was 2,500 Yen for entrance plus a cup that you could constantly refill. Which, in retrospect is a very good deal, but the QUEUE to actually get drinks is CRAZY! hot, sticky and the bartender was so generous and gave me 1 teaspoon of Vodka in my cranberry vodka. Lovely!

So, our bartender was the grossest thing ever. He was wearing some black panties, I mean, black-tighties or a speedo or a leather triangle thing. I didn’t stare so I don’t know the details, but he was SWEATING, and all the bottle nozzles were lined at the counter, and when he took orders, he would LEAN over, and you could see his tummy touch the nozzles. *gag*

 

When we were getting our drinks, another gross guy was screaming in Andrea’s ear. that man-magnet. 😛

I noticed that there was less of a crowd (it was late) so I went outside to see if we could put my HUGE PURSE in a locker, but couldn’t so we just sat on the stairs and chatted. And next to us was a guy dressed as a garbage can. Hah. correction, he was actually a keg, but he really looked like a bin.

Then two guys started to talk to us, and one guy’s name was Andre, and as Andrea’s name is..Andrea.. he was like, WOAH MY NAME IS ANDRE!!! haha, wow, fabulous. Anyways, I got to chat to the nicer guy – his friend Jason -for a while, and poor Andrea had to speak to her name-twin Andre. Lucky me!

Jason asked me to guess his profession, and I guessed everything but military, i don’t know, it didn’t hit me. Then..

Jason: I’m an officer

Stacy: Ah..

Jason: Do you know what that means/is? (forgot the exact wording)

Stacy: Yup….

DON’T I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS. sigh..

Probably the weirdest thing that happened during my conversation with Jason, is that when I told him we went to Tsukiji Fish market, he immediately picked up my hand and SMELT IT. WEEEIRD! by the time he put my hand down I was just standing there with my mouth open like “what just happened?” argh, thank goodness I just finished using my hand sanitizer, at least I hope my hand didn’t smell bad. But anyways, it was incredibly weird, men have taken my hand to kiss it, but to whiff it? That has to be noted in the books. Duly noted.

Andrea and I left the club and headed home, but instead of taking a cab, we WALKED BACK TO THE HOTEL. SO GHETTO! I have no idea what I was thinking! I remember my ‘brother’ in Singapore, Manoj, he told me of the time when he was in Paris ….he and his friend slept in a telephone booth. Maybe I was going for a crazy adventure like that. It was crazy, it took us 45 minutes to walk back to the hotel.

I can see it now, Andrea telling her kids, “Do you know your Aunt Stacy made me walk back to our hotel in Tokyo at 4 am in the morning??”

Miss you Andrea!,
Stacy

For photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/skmkh2002/FabulousJapan2008

Fabulous Japan – Day Two – Tsukiji Fish Market

Dear Readers,

When Andrea was planning the itinery, she said, “We’ll wake up at 7am to go see the fish market.”

….

WHAT!!! A fish market!! 7am! and when I said this to Denise, “Can you imagine, 7am??” I will always remember her response, “My dear, not 7am, FOUR THIRRTY!!!”

*faints*

So on Denise’s expert advice, I ended up being the more ridiculous of us two, and told Andrea that we had to head out at 6am.

The journey getting to the fish market itself was quite amazing. Andrea and I were superstars. On our own bought what we thought were 2 day Tokyo underground passes – Pasmo – only to realise that it is a simple top up card, similar to HK’s Octopus card, Singapore’s  EZ Link and London’s Oyster card. (Fabulous!)

So we reached Shinjuku Station (a 5 minute walk from our hotel) at 630-ish, and it took us roughly 25 minutes to find the proper Shinjuku station to go to Tsukiji. That sentence probably seems like it makes no sense. But in Tokyo, anything is possible. It makes sense.

Because, say there is one station, and this station is an interchanging station, the Tokyo subway system doesn’t provide easy interchanges. You as the commuter have to travel up down and around a pocket full of posies. Oh wait to illustrate, check this out Tokyo Underground Transit Map

So at our station Shinjuku, Andrea and I needed to go on the Marunouchi line but our hotel was close to the Oedo line. Oh wait, as I type this out, I finally get it. The big font letters like, SHINJUKU is the area, so different lines are placed in different parts of that area, and if by chance you can interchange in the same location then you are lucky! Phew! I wish I made that revelation earlier.

To say it simply – the Tokyo Subway is very confusing.

So it was bright early in the morning, Andrea was enthusiastic about talking to people and asking for directions. With her blue small phrasebook, she asked “Marunouchi line (she had the word for it, i cant recall now) doko desku?”  The station manager was nice, pointed us towards the North, we walked there and up a flight of stairs, realised we were walking back the hotel way, U-turned walked down the same flight of stairs, asked another Uncle and he directed us West, we walked straight, didn’t work out, then we asked a tourist couple, who were very nice, told us it was out of the Oedo station and a 5 minute walk. Unclear instructions, didn’t know where to go, then we asked another man, and this man was SO SWEET, he walked us down a small flight of stairs and pointed the path.

All in all, like I said, it took us 30 minutes to get from Shinjuku station to Shinjuku station. And within 15 minutes we were at Tsukiji Fish Market.

What can I say. It was a fish market, there were fish, and lorries and trolleys and wet floors. Coming from Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore, I can openly say, I don’t see the big deal about it. Maybe this is similar to when my Singapore friends come and they say they must go to BIG C (a low grade low cost grocery store in Thailand) I have such a laugh when I look back at our fish market photos. We are taking photos of dead fish, posing with dead fish, it’s quite hilarious. I just can’t believe it is an actual tourist attraction.

Some points on Tsukiji Market,

1. the vendors are conducting their business, so they must feel a bit

(-.-) <-thats a face

when we tourist come over to snap photos of their livelihood, especially when they don’t profit from it. You don’t see any of us buying 100grams of fresh octopus.

2. The drivers of the trolleys, and the trucks (basically motorised equipment) are either really angry at us tourist and want to run us down, – or they drive like that usually. You have to imagine a lane the width of a king size bed (1.5 meters?) and a trolley zooming by at 20 – 30km/h. Craziness!! All you here is Zooommrr! or Vrrooomr! Easily your foot could be rolled over.

3. The fish market doesn’t have a disgusting fish stench, its quite pleasant actually. Props.

We met these 2 HK girls, who were also scared to death about the trolleys, and when walking to the sushi restaurant, they were standing behind crates not knowing if it was safe to go forward. I was scared too! Trucks driving by, and forklifts driving at 30km/h.

But we survived and made it to Sushi Dae for fresh Sushi!

That’s another entry all together,

Stacy

For photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/skmkh2002/FabulousJapan2008